


Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

by Malathyne, Poetry



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Bittersweet, Community: saying_yes_2010, Multi, Reconciliation Sex, Reunions, Smut, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-26
Updated: 2010-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:45:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malathyne/pseuds/Malathyne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't quite fit together, not like they used to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by [Canaan.](http://canaana.livejournal.com/)

"Do you trust me?"

Jack wants to trust him so badly, especially now when he can feel the coolness of the Doctor's breath, hear his footsteps on the floor. The rewards he could earn if he could only trust were beyond imagining. Yet all he can do is wonder if the Doctor will turn on his heel and leave him here, blindfolded, tied, and helpless. After all, he'd done worse. He'd rather be left naked and alone with some shred of dignity than clothed and untied with only corpses and despair for company, as he had been left so long ago – but not long enough to forget.

_Not yet_, he thinks.

"Do you trust me?"

The steel cuffs close around his wrists, and Jack gasps in reflexive horror, the steam and the filth of his year-long imprisonment suddenly as real as the sensation of the Doctor's breath on his cheek. Then the Doctor's hands are cool on his chest and the stinking heat recedes from the hollows of his mind. Nothing's changed, though. When it happens again, the Doctor won't be there. He'll suffer just the same, dying endlessly at the hand of whoever manages to torture him next.

_Not yet_, he thinks.

"Do you trust me?"

The Doctor presses his wrist to Jack's hand, and his guts lurch when he realizes that the Doctor's wearing his Vortex manipulator. He could take them anywhere. He could take Jack back to the Time Agency, trussed and bound and blind, or a planet without an atmosphere where he could be left to die and resurrect in endless cycles until -

There's a flash, and all sensation is gone; he's floating in zero-grav, with no feeling left but the cold burn of steel on his wrists, the pinch of the rope on his ankles, and the pressure of the blindfold on his eyelids. Jack begins to shake all over, in places he didn't know he could tremble.

_Not yet_, he thinks frantically, _not ever -_

"Do you trust me?"

Then the Doctor's hands are everywhere, stroking up the inside of his thigh, loosening the ropes on his ankles, tracing along his collarbone; and even when those clever fingers brush against his pulse points, even when he feels the Vortex manipulator against his skin, he can no longer accept that this is a man who could abandon him without breaking his own hearts.

Somewhere along the line, Jack's become achingly hard. All the muscles in his body go slack, and he lets the Doctor just hold him.

His voice is broken to almost a sob. "Yes. I trust you."

The Vortex manipulator is rough against Jack's thigh as the Doctor finally takes him in hand and strokes him gently. In that moment, the Doctor could take Jack anywhere - and he isn't afraid.

* * *

"You left me." She is gripping the Doctor's hips like narrow anchors, as if she might float away, back across the universes.

"I know." He is slowly exploring her back with soft, light, cautious fingertips.

Rose wishes he would touch her sides, her mouth, her chest, her heart. She wants him to feel him closer, harder, to remind her that he's solid as he hadn't been the day he left her on that beach alone. "You left me with _him_."

"I know." His fingers are slowing, just barely trailing their way across her spine – but Rose isn't fragile. She _needs_ –

"He's not you," she says, and mentally adds, _he'll never be_ you.

His touch draws away, and Rose's breath escapes with a hiss. Without the contact, she feels adrift, like she's slipping away, even though he's right beside her. "I know," he says. "I'm sorry." Rose is sorry, too – sorry for all the times he's been alone.

"I know." _I still love you_, she thinks, but the words dissipate in her throat like a thousand ghosts, as commonplace and necessary as air.

They kiss, chastely, and just for a moment, they are grounded.

* * *

The last act of the Time War was life

and what a life it

and what a life

and life

Jack can't get those words out of his head. He isn't sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing

but then his thoughts start over as Rose trails her fingers lower

and then his thoughts start over as she touches him _there_

and the last act of the Time War was

and what a life

Jack doesn't have a hard time forgiving Rose.

* * *

They don't quite fit together, not like they used to.

Rose bites down too hard on the Doctor's shoulder, but he suppresses the gasp of pain because he has to make it work. There's nothing left for them to do but _try_.

The rhythm between them is off, everything feels a bit forced, and none of them can really quite get there, but they don't stop. Just holding on to each other makes them feel, for a few moments, that they won't fly away from each other, like the nucleus of an atom decaying.

Jack's fingers slow inside her, and for a blinding second it's perfect; the myriad angles and edges slot into place, into pleasure. Then the Doctor shifts behind her, and the dance is once more just a little out of sync.

The pieces don't quite fit, but if they keep whittling away, stroke by stroke, then maybe, one day, they will.


End file.
